The Hunter and the Hunted
by ccrimsonrain
Summary: Haruka began his quest to become a Bounty hunter after seeking vengeance of a werewolf who took the life of his childhood friend. However, he doesn't realize his friend is still alive until the day he was assigned to kill an accused wolf-man and becomes bedridden in the beast's home. A story about a hunter falling in love with the hunted. Rated might go up for future chapters.


_Author's Note:_ Here's another fun AU of my favorite duo Rin and Haru. I'm starting out with one chapter so far but I'm might continue on the story if anyone is interested in reading more OR I manage to finish the next chapter smoothly. The setting of this story is during the Victorian Era. Please enjoy!

 _Summary:_ Haruka began his quest to become the best Bounty hunter in the country after seeking vengeance of a blood thirsty werewolf who supposedly took the life of his childhood friend. However, he doesn't realize his friend was still alive until the day he was assigned to kill an accused red wolf roaming the woods and eating farmer's live stock. A story about a hunter falling in love with the hunted.

 _Declaimer:_ I don't own Free! Iwatobi Swim Club

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 **Chapter 1: A Lone Wolf's Den**

The throbbing pulse in Haru's ear started to become apparent in his slumbering mind, coming louder and louder. It invaded his mind until he focused on the sound and recognized it as singing crickets. It woke him up instantly and with small struggle he managed to open his pool filled eyes. He expected bright blue skies and grass all around him much like what he was hearing but instead it was dark. His blurry vision didn't help him recognize the void area until time came and he could focus. He was in a room he assumed because he was staring up at a ceiling. Beside him was a burnt urban wooden table with clutter all around it. A warm crackling fire stood adjacent to him its crumbly old bricks warming the room.

Haru groaned fighting the numbness in his mind and found function in his hands. He felt fabric in his fingers discovering a wool blanket was over him. He took the time to feel the wool and turned his head to take in his surroundings. Gaining courage he lifted up his hand feeling extremely stiff. He fisted his hand in front of his face trying to loosen up his muscles. Then he noticed bandages on his forearm and some scabbing abrasions. How strange he thought. He couldn't remember much but he assumed it was because he just woke up. Satisfied he put his hand back down and tried shifting to sit up straight. A spiking pain shot though his spine when he moved up and he gasped loudly retreating back to his old position. He begged for the tightening pain to go away obeying his body to stay absolutely still. It worked and he went numb once again. Now he knew something was defiantly wrong.

There was a noise somewhere in the room, a shifting sound of floorboard reacting to footsteps to be exact. Haru held his breath staring across the room where he now realized was an open doorway. With small panic he strained his neck looking for his bag that had all his weapons. He couldn't move far knowing his back would scream at him so he gripped the blankets accepting he wouldn't be able to protect himself. With a pang of frustration Haru had to stay still fearing what he was about to face.

The heavy footsteps came louder and soon a tall figure came through the doorway. Haru recognized him and instantly wanted to disappear in the blankets and pretend to be asleep. It was no use because they caught eye contact. By now Haru's memory had come back to him and he remembered this man's name. His name was Rin. A rather mysterious man who he was meant to kill in the deep northern part of the woods. He would of gotten over one thousand coins bringing down this man but instead he his laying bedridden in his living room. It wasn't like Haru was a man hunter but there had been sighting of this a farmer's livestock being stolen from an accused werewolf in the country side. Being the top bounty hunter Haru was put on the job to kill the monster. Unfortunately the raging bloodthirsty beast Haru expected turned out to be this redhead that hardly had any wolf like features besides a set of straight ears, a bushy tail, and powerfully balanced dog paws instead of feet. He was a rather beautiful creature Haru had thought until the man attacked him after he grazed his ear with his trusted revolver. Just thinking about it made the human stare at Rin's thick left ear that had a chunk of skin missing from his shot. He chose to rest his eyes there instead of Rin's face that came closer.

"I figured you would be awake, I heard you squalling. Where you gonna try and get up to kill me again," Rin's grouchy voice came into Haru's ears loudly.

The insult made Haru glare because he didn't squeal like a child. The wolf didn't seem to care and he pushed aside the mess on the table and sat down on it, his clawed feet clacking against the wooden floor until settling. Haru still refused to look at his face and Rin noticed flicking his wounded ear.

"You know my ear is never going to heal properly because of that damn silver. What if you actually hit my head?" He continued knowing that was Haru's intention at the time.

It pissed the wolf off to be honest. Especially since this assassin decided to stumbled into his cabin the other night half dead from the evil-dwelling night. It wasn't Rin who injured Haru it was nearly the elements of the woods when the wolf had escaped the hunter's guns. He thought Haru should be grateful he took him in instead of kicking him out but it didn't seem so.

Haru turned his head away and swallowed bitterly feeling thirsty. He was indeed grateful but couldn't trust the werewolf that was supposed to be nothing but evil. He didn't understand why he was being helped by this man when he was sent out to kill him. His troubling thoughts were interrupted when Rin leaned over him and touched his forehead. He didn't flinch away but they did catch eye contact again.

"Your fever is finally breaking. That means your infection must be healing." Rin announced.

"What do you mean?" Haru asked a bit appalled. He still couldn't comprehend what happened to him the previous couple of days.

Rin didn't answer him right away and stood up moving over to sit on the couch Haru was on. He lifted his left leg so he could sit but when he did more pain slipped through Haru's body and he winced desperately grabbing the sheets. "Hey what are you doing?" The man protested.

Rin ignored him and sat putting Haru's leg over his lap which settled the pain. It was rather embarrassing when Rin moved off the blanket because he only had a gown on and the cold prickled his hot skin easily.

"You're telling me you don't remember what happened to you? You almost died from blood loss. You passed out when I stitched you up even when I gave you a whole liquor bottle to numb the pain." Rin explained moving the gown up above Haru's knee. His thigh was tightly bandaged with cloth that was now stained with blood. Haru rested his head back annoyed now because he did remember Rin giving him alcohol so he couldn't feel the needle and thread going through his skin. Didn't help much because he still felt it.

"It wasn't last night if you think it was. You've been unconscious for a good few nights. I actually thought you would die from the fever seeing that humans are so squishy." The wolf continued looking all amused with his big toothy grin.

He was actually relieved Haru was awake and no longer facing potential death. Haru was very surprised because it didn't feel like he was asleep for so long. Rin untied the bandage and the pressure on his leg was lifted. The pain was very much apparent and Haru cringed his face taking it in. With annoyance the human sat up slightly fighting the tightness in his back and pushed back Rin's hands. He wanted to take the bandage off himself and the wolf let him. After a few layers where unwrapped Haru could see the wound. The wound oozed warm wet blood and peeling away the last cloth was uncomfortable. Underneath was a large three inch swollen gash vertically along Haru's thigh. His skin was sore and stiffly pulled together by six stitches. Some parts of had started to scab while more in the center it still had fresh blood. Little puss came from where the stitches held the healing skin as if each string struggled to keep it from splitting apart again. It was a terrific groove and Haru couldn't keep his eyes off it doubting that such a wound was on his body. He was afraid to touch it or even move his leg thinking it would rip open again and bleed all over.

Rin's hand came into his sight with a cloth that pressed on the wound with surprising gentleness. Of course putting pressure on it would put more pain through his leg but Haru had to bear with it because Rin was just cleaning off the stray blood and puss. It wasn't too bad.

"It's healing just fine. It's not too infected at least." The wolf explained after he was finished cleaning it. Haru stayed silent and Rin reached to the table and grabbed water to pour on the wound to rinse it out. Haru tensed but the cool liquid felt great.

"I don't understand," Haru started with a paused to let the wolf-man look up, "why are you helping me?"

Rin took a moment to think about the question and looked back down to continue whipping Haru's leg until it dried. He gave up a long time ago about all the blood that came from Haru's body because his couch is already permanently stained. Oh well. Rin twitched his ears and finally looked up again, "No reasons. Why would I help a human that was trying to kill me and accusing me of being a beast? I have to survive too you know." He defended himself with small irritation lingering his hand on Haru's bare leg like it didn't bother Haru at all. The blue eyed man blinked at him and then looked away once again all stubborn with his cheeks pink. He was flustered by the whole thing not exactly confident about his situation at the moment. There was a long silence as Haru held his tongue exhausted from having conversation. Rin reached over him to grab a small bottle that had yellow liquid in it and crushed herbs. Rin opened the vile and started to apply the stuff on Haru's wound with careful fingers. "This will help the scaring," he mumbled not sure if Haru was listening.

The silence brought Haru's eyes to linger not sure to focus on Rins fingers probing on his sickly wound or the sound of crickets chirping outside in the evening. He thought of Mokoto suddenly, his only best friend. The last time he saw him he was in the village far East near the ocean. He remembered him begging him not to go after the werewolf mission. Haru stared sadly imagining Mokotos sorrows discovering he had disappeared in the woods never to return.

"Sit up more." Rins voice came in abruptly cutting off the silence.

"What?" Haru asked not quiet catching it. Rin moved from the couch after putting Haru's leg off him.

"Sit up more." The werewolf repeated and offered to push his back up but Haru shooed him away taking the time to sit up straight. Now that he was more aware of the pain in his back it wasn't as painful as he thought. A rush of fatigue rushed to his head suddenly and he rubbed his forehead. Rin sat behind Haru now and pulled down the back of his collar looking down his back. Haru arched a bit feeling Rins cold hand touch the back of his shoulder and hated how he liked the feeling of the cold touch to his burning skin. The blue eyed hunter turned to look at the werewolf who was thinking.

From Rin's view he could see rashes starting to form on Haru's back from laying down on the same spot for too long. He was startled when he caught Haru staring at him and his ears flattened afraid the human saw him worried.

"You're stinking up the room. You don't want me trying to eat you every time I smell your blood all over the place." Rin barked boisterously removing himself from behind Haru and grabbed his arm to pull him up. Haru almost fell over from the lift and Rin loosened his grip apologetically not aware how light Haru was. The sickly man shot piercing glares at the monster and fixed his footing putting his good leg on first.

After he was up and done wobbling from lightheadedness he put pressure on his bad leg to start walking. Another shock of pain went up his body from the pressure and luckily Rin was there to catch him. Together they limped past the living room and into a dark hallway. Haru was a bit frightened to where Rin was taking him. However, it was nothing terrifying just a bathroom with an old tub full of water.

Haru's fear left him and he shoved off the wolf and limped to the water leaning on the tub heavily because he was moving too much. Rin was growling at him when he fallowed a bit flustered. "Can you get in there or do I have to undress you?"

"Get out." Haru announced and pulled off his gown easily. Rin blushed and left. Haru went in the water and it felt refreshing compared to his nauseous filled body and sweaty hot skin. It was great.

After soaking a long time Haru felt a little better. He couldn't hear Rin outside the bathroom anymore or anywhere in the house so he started to get up. It was a real chore. With a heavy head and weak legs the man pulled himself out and got a cloth to dry. He couldn't feel his leg and bravely inspected it. He tried his best to keep it out of the water the whole time so it wasn't soggy or anything. He poked at the scabs a little and pinched the flesh carefully wondering if he'll ever get feeling again. He stopped when pain started to throb again so he looked for clothes. Cotton pants and a wool shirt was waiting for him. He gladly put them on with great struggle but tried to be a quiet as possible. Then he hopped to the door and peeked his head out.

No beast in sight.

The hallway from the bathroom was short and dark. To his right the living room where he slept was in sight. To the right a skinned blanket was pinned up in an entryway to another room. Haru carelessly went towards the blanket and looked inside. It was a low room with another cozy fireplace and a large lumpy bed. Layers of furs and wool blankets were on the bed with one flat pillow. Adjacent the bed was shelves with various books, dust and folded clothes. The calmness of the bedroom made Haru surrender to the fatigue in his bones so he made up his mind. With heavily limped steps he went to the bed and laid down. He quickly fell fast asleep thinking a bed was a much more appropriate place to rest in a werewolf's cottage in the woods.


End file.
